Lebanon has announced a new government, breaking a 10-month political deadlock during which violence from neighbouring Syria worsened internal instability.

A caretaker government has run the country since former prime minister Najib Mikati resigned in March, as parties aligned with the Shiite Hezbollah movement and a Sunni-led rival bloc pursued a power struggle exacerbated by their support for opposing sides in Syria's almost three-year-old civil war.

"A government in the national interest was formed in a spirit of inclusivity," new prime minister Tammam Salam declared on live television.

He said he hoped the new government would allow Lebanon to hold presidential elections before president Michel Suleiman's mandate expires in May and finally conduct parliamentary polls that were postponed last year due to the political impasse.

"I extend my hand to all the leaders and I am relying on their wisdom to reach these goals," he said.

"I call on all of them together to make concessions in the interest of our national project."

Parliament designated the Sunni lawmaker as prime minister in April 2013, but he had been unable to form a government for months due to rivalries between the Hezbollah-dominated March 8 bloc and the March 14 alliance, led by the Sunni Future Party.

Mr Salam said the new cabinet, which he dubbed a "national interest government", was a mandate for the country to fight its growing security problem, which he linked to Syria.

"We must also deal with our complicated economic and social issues, the most important of which is the growing number of refugees from our Syrian brothers and the burdens this has placed on Lebanon," he said.

Sectarian violence has erupted sporadically in the past year, particularly in the north.

Car bombings targeting both security and political targets have increased dramatically, with Hezbollah-dominated areas being the most frequent target.

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.